John Herlitz, former Chrysler Senior Design Vice President, dies

John E. Herlitz, former Chrysler Senior Design Vice President, died on March 24th, he was 65. His 35 year career with Chrysler began in 1965, when he joined the company as a stylist, after graduating from Pratt Institute of Design in Brooklyn. In just three years, Herlitz became manager of the now defunct Plymouth brand's Intermediate Car Studio. From this position, he had a decisive influence on the designs of what have now become icons of the original muscle-car era. Herlitz is credited with the design of the 1970 Plymouth Barracuda and 1971 Roadrunner GTX.

A true Mopar guy, John Herlitz began to correspond by mail with the Chrysler design organization for guidance when he was just 13 years old. Even though the head of the industrial design department at Pratt had arranged a job for him at GM, Herlitz chose instead to go to Chrysler were he stayed for his whole career, eventually becoming Senior Design Vice President.

There, in the 1990s, he supervised the design of vehicles that were critical to Chrysler's survival, among them the LH-Series sedans and the 1994 Ram pick-up. He was also involved in the design of numerous concepts cars like the Dodge Copperhead, which debuted at the 1997 North American International Auto Show. Tom Gale once said, when he was DaimlerChrysler's Design Director, that "John's design signature has been seen on Chrysler branded vehicles from 1968.  He has a true passion for cars and vehicle design that is unparalleled in the industry."

Herlitz retired from DaimlerChrysler in 2000, shortly after the merger, and was replaced by Trevor Creed. Since 2005, Herlitz served as a board member for Winnebago Industries. Sadly, Herlitz has died just when Chrysler is resurrecting its muscle-car heritage with the 2008 Dodge Challenger, a sibling of the cars he created almost forty years ago.

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